Overview
Di Salvo and colleagues analysed ten gourmet table salts bought in Messina in May 2022 for 12 elements by ICP-MS, with mercury by direct mercury analyzer. The salts include grey sea salts, Himalayan and Hawaiian colored salts, a Persian blue rock salt and a smoked salt. Table 5 reports mean ± SD per salt.
Key numbers
- Lead ranged from 5.24 ± 0.28 mg/Kg (smoked salt) to 9.24 ± 0.42 mg/Kg (Persian blue rock salt), average 7.25 ± 0.89 (Table 5, p. 7).
- Mercury was 0.001 mg/Kg in most salts and 0.04 mg/Kg in the Palermo whole rock salt (Table 5; Table 3 prints 0.0394).
- Nickel reached 12.41 ± 1.78 mg/Kg in the Persian blue salt and 7.52 ± 1.19 mg/Kg in the smoked salt (Table 5, p. 7).
- The authors state lead exceeded the maximum level in all samples (Abstract).
Methods (brief)
Five grams of ground salt were left in 100 mL water with 1 mL nitric acid for 3 days and filtered, then analysed by single-quadrupole ICP-MS (iCAP-Q). Mercury was measured on a DMA-80 by thermal decomposition amalgamation AAS. Recoveries from spiking were 91.36 to 101.50%, and LODs are printed in µg/Kg (Table 2).
Evidence Fitness
Only one product per salt type, analysed in triplicate. Lead values of 5 to 9 mg/Kg are far higher than in other salt surveys, and the paper has internal inconsistencies (the Table 4 mercury maximum is below its average, the Table 5 aluminum minimum is above one salt’s value, and the text names a different salt as highest in aluminum). None is iodized salt, so this is a proxy for iodized-salt and that page is not linked.